Down-Translating XML: The Python Way

Nowadays, the most used approach to process an XML file is based on the processing of a DOM structure and a set of operations that collects or edits information in the model using some kind of selectors (usually CSS-like or XPath). Nevertheless, the process of performing a depth-first walk through the DOM, and synthesizing values, is a simple way to traverse and transform an entire XML document. In this document we discuss the details on the implementation and usage of a Python package for XML document processing based on this structure. Given the existence of similar tools for other programming languages, we will mainly focus on the used approach, that takes advantage of the Python style guides and development patterns.